Problems with tickets?
Something about the way the Athletic Department is distributing tickets this year has spawned more complaints than last year from students who want tickets but feel they can’t get them because of the new system.
That has the ASUO nervous. What does the ASUO have to do with it? Well, it is the ASUO that the Athletic Department deals with in determining the number of tickets it gives to students, and the only direct, structural line of communication it has with the student body.
“This is the one thing that the student body knows us for right now,” Sen. Jeremy Blanchard said. “They don’t really connect their bus pases to the (student incidental fee, which pays for the ASUO), but they do connect this.” So, he later added: “We need to solve this.”
Under the new system, students are all required to log on at the same minute to get their tickets. Senate Ombudsperson Alex McCafferty, who sits on the Athletics and Contracts Finance Committee and is therefore in communication with the Athletic Department, said this then puts students in a queue to receive their tickets based on the order in which they sign on, and distributes tickets in that order.
Though McCafferty at times defended the new system during the Senate meeting, even he admitted, when Sen. Tyler Griffin proposed replacing the system with a lottery, that “I would make the argument that it’s already a lottery process, because it’s such a shot in the dark.”
Senators were in wide agreement that the new system causes chaos. Students with slow internet connections or on crowded networks, such as many who try to get their tickets from campus, seem incapable of obtaining them. Meanwhile, others lucky enough to be among the first to click can not only get their own tickets, but also sign in using friends’ information and get tickets for them, seemingly jumping to the front of the queue.
Sen. Demic Tipitiono said he used that method to get six tickets for himself and friends, and that every one of the 50 members of his fraternity got tickets from a handful who logged on correctly and then logged back in.
There were many proposals for fixing the system, but none with wide support. Going back to the pre-2008 system, under which students got their tickets physically from the University Ticketing Office in the EMU, would be impossible, Sen. Sandy Weintraub said. That system was scrapped because it led to students skipping classes to camp out in front of the EMU to ensure they got tickets, angering professors, who advocated the change.
The new system, however, by reducing the effort required to get tickets, has increased the number of students who try to get tickets, Weintraub said, which he hypothesized was the cause of any problems the ticket server may be having.
Aside from Griffin’s lottery proposal, the other major suggestion was going back to the 2008-09 system that staggered students by class, presumably because that would lead to shorter queues.
Sen. Sandy Weintraub — bravely, it must be said considering the backlash it has brooked in the past — proposed simply asking students to pay for their tickets individually, rather than under the ASUO’s group contract with the Athletic Department. That is, they wouldn’t be free in the sense that one would have to pay to obtain an individual ticket
Unpopular though it is likely to be, it is also the only proposal the ASUO is sure to be able to effect. The Athletic Department designed the ticketing system and has sole authority over how it will work. The ASUO only controls the number of tickets to be distributed. So far, Athletics has asked the ASUO for feedback.
“That’s kind of just the Athletic Departmet being really nice and giving us an opportunity to have a say in this,” McCafferty said.
Until then, his advice to students who want to ensure they will get tickets was this: cable connections are a better bet than wireless connections and students should stay away from areas where many students will be trying to get tickets, like the University campus. There’s seemingly little more the ASUO can offer.
